Still learning to knit (with only one needle…)

Today I popped into a new wool shop in town. It opened a couple of months ago and although I am follow them on Facebook I'd not had the chance to take a look for myself.

The shelves were stacked with beautiful yarn, every colour of the rainbow, soft, silky and fluffy. Wool is becoming a must have commodity.

"I must learn to knit properly!" I exclaimed to my friend as we left.

"You can knit." she scoffed.

Well I can but only the basics and I certainly can't figure out a knitting pattern.

All of which has little to do with this post I wrote almost a year ago except the title.

There are times I re-read my writing from a year ago and think it's rubbish and then there are times when it surprises me, sometimes it's the content, the way I've expressed an idea or the fact that I have moved on from that point.

Sometimes re-reading makes me believe I CAN write and have something to say! 

So often we tell our kids they can do ANYTHING if they put their mind to it, practice and keep trying.

There's a lesson in here somewhere and once again it's perseverance, picking yourself up and carrying on with whatever life throws at you.

I’m knitting with only one needle…

(posted 15th May 2011) 

I’ve figured something out.  I’m now officially out of sync with the rest of my generation.

I’ve always felt odd, a bit different.  In my best and most positive moments I would describe myself as unique!

I shouldn’t be a widow at 43!  Nobody should be.

My peers, my friends have husbands and families to share their lives with.  They do things together. Ups, downs, tears, tantrums, joy and laughter.

We were at the stage of the children growing more independent yet still needing us and we were making those adjustments required to accommodate adolescence.  We had a long way to go but we were learning – together.  A mutual help and support group of two.

OK it’s not like that for everyone.  There are lots of people who are on their own.  Some people never meet that special someone to share their life with.  I was “lucky”, for a while.  For someone who suffered so much anxiety and self-doubt growing up that I would never meet anyone, I counted myself as truly blessed – most of the time.

But now that’s gone.

Nobody should be a widow in their early 40s when there are still jobs to be done.  The children still need raising, the house still needs fixing.  It is a time to plan together for the empty nest.  The years at the end when we get the chance to fly too, satisfied we’ve done our best.

My parents are away on holiday at the moment, a coach trip to Scotland.  Just them and their friends relaxing and having fun.  That should have been us in twenty years time.  Only I always wanted us to return to Tahiti, a romantic getaway, same hotel, our exotic paradise with black sand…. 

I have been enjoying walking round my garden more and more, usually in the morning.  It seems like the thing to do, to admire new growth.  I am going to write some more about that another day.  My last post about the garden was a very popular one, this time I may include some photos!

While taking a wander this morning (still in my dressing gown, because I can!) I thought about not quite fitting in.

To me the word “widow” conjures up an image of an older woman with her family grown.  She is able to visit children, even grandchildren, but still have her own space to do the things she dreams of.  Memories make her smile and some may bring tears but she treasures the time spent together with her husband and the family they created together.

Of course in reality “widows” come in all shapes and sizes.  Some older and some even younger than me.

It’s just at the moment I am quite angry at the unfairness of it all.  It wasn’t even as if I picked at man considerably older than me so I somehow expected this to happen so early.  Six years isn’t a huge age gap.

What I am most frustrated about at the moment is that I still have to raise the boys.  I have no idea what goes on in their heads they are like a different species!  This is a job for two people and I now have to do it alone.

Today’s title is from a Queen song that just happened to shuffle its way onto my iPod …

I’m knitting on only one needle

Unravelling fast it’s true

I’m driving on only three wheels

My dear, how about you?

I’m going slightly mad

You can’t possibly knit on one needle so maybe I need to learn to crochet instead to hold us together.

The other week I did have a flat tyre and you can’t drive like that, maybe I just need to rely on others to keep me balanced.  Or buy a Robin Reliant!

I am having to adjust to so much to do the best I can with what I’ve been given.  Sometimes it is so hard and I feel like the pain will never end.  I still don’t understand why it hurts so much more now than it did in the beginning.  Probably reality hitting home.  There are still moments every day when I stop and realise - Andrew's never coming back!

Sometimes it feels like I am going slightly mad so please bear with me while I acclimatise to my new state.  The road ahead is still very bumpy but you can still follow if you wish…

A big decision made last year

It was a whole year ago that the house went on the market, I know because I wrote about it!

Yesterday I wrote something for re-ravelling about the many journeys I make in a day, going to and from school, church, shops, my friends. Those 7 minute trips soon add up and often take an hour out of my day. 

How I wish the boys could walk to school, they would gain so much freedom and I would get back my hour a day...

I long to move, to put the finishing touches to this chapter and begin the next one.

But I keep hearing from various sources that I should live in the present and enjoy the things I've got here and now, not always easy but I'm trying. 

In the end I never posted my whingey post about my seven minute journeys, I've written too much lately about the lows, the things that pull me under.

I need to celebrate just how far I've come, enjoy living in this home Andrew and I created while we are still here and look back with satisfaction at all the decisions I have made...

unravelling edges: Sometimes the big decisions are far easier than th...: Well I’ve done it!   I’ve put the house on the market.   The house Andrew and I lovingly worked on to create our family home. I remember...

Last year I wrote a poem that didn't rhyme...

A year ago I wrote and posted this "sort of" poem about all the things I should be doing but just don't have the time or inclination to complete. Also about the impossible things on my list that I will never achieve and how the "shoulds" and the "nevers" merge into one...

 

Here I sit a year on and wonder how much has changed, some days are still a hard slog. I could make the excuse that our wedding anniversary is coming around soon, so it is another difficult time of the year, but it would be an excuse, grief has so many ups and downs not always connected to dates or seasons. Sometimes it has more to do with the weather!

Today, this year, I have nearly reached the bottom of my ironing pile, have written a letter and posted a birthday card and present. I also finished the crossword with youngest son, otherwise I have not been at my most productive. There are lots of things I "should" have done with my free day.

I wonder what I will be doing this time next year? How much my life will have changed or if I will still only be moving in baby steps, unsure and uncertain...

 

Today I wrote a Poem That Didn't Rhyme... 

(posted 2nd May 2011)

 

Today I should have cooked a wholesome meal and made sure the boys had at least maybe three portions of fresh fruit and veg.

Today I should have worried about world peace and that particularly unpleasant situation that’s flared up in some far flung corner of the globe.

Today I should have climbed a mountain, swam the entire length of the Amazon and popped to the Antarctic before the ice caps melt.

Today I should have telephoned my friend who’s sick, wrapped and posted a birthday present and replied to that email I got two weeks ago.

Today I should have tidied that cupboard, recycled my cardboard, cut out those coupons and written a shopping list so I don’t forget to buy the toilet rolls again next week.

Today I should have practiced flying on the trapeze and learnt Ophelia’s lines from Hamlet.  I should have baked that cake with icing and a cherry on the top!

Today I remembered to breathe.  I did one load of washing but left the ironing.  I fed the boys pasta for the third day in a row.

Last week I left the dishes in the sink and post unopened on the table.  I forgot to charge my phone and I was only 14p in credit.

The month before I couldn’t do the crossword without you and I woke up in a panic at ten to twelve worried I hadn’t locked the front door.

Six months ago you were here to change the light bulbs and shut the gate at night.  You were someone to impress with my culinary skills.

Today I remembered to breathe.  I spent time talking to the children.   I visited your mum.  I wrote a poem.

Today I made it, somehow I got through.  I shed a tear.  I thought of you.

P.S. I didn’t really feed the boys pasta three days in a row, it just felt like it.

P.P.S. If you are the one who didn’t get the phone call, birthday card or email. Please know that I am thinking of you.

Today I hope that my thought counts! x

Anniversaries

The Royal Wedding was almost a year ago which means this weekend William and Kate will be celebrating their first wedding anniversary.

First wedding anniversaries are paper ones, according to myth and legend, I wonder what gift William will give his bride?

  

On our first anniversary I gave Andrew a book about origami.

I found it months ago and have kept it in the special drawer of Andrew's things, inside is a gift tag

To Andrew (Husband)

On our 1st anniversary

love Sarah (Wife) 

xxx

We would often call each other "husband" and "wife" and maybe it sounds silly or even degrading but it was always said with affection. We both liked the fact that we were a husband and a wife, two halves of a whole, it defined part of who we were...

...but before I get all teary, they are bubbling just under the surface here, let's see what I wrote last year and share some happy memories of wedding days...

 

Everybody loves a wedding

Today is a very special day.  

The day of the royal wedding between Prince William and Catherine Middleton.

I’m sat watching the TV as I type and at the moment the discussion is all about the dress.  Then we cut to a sweeping view over the London skyline followed by a shot of the inside of Westminster Abbey filling with guests in their finery.

Everybody loves a wedding.  For Kate this is the day she becomes a real princess but every girl on her wedding day has her chance to be a princess. 

 

I remember my “princess” moment.  In fact my day was made up of a myriad of tiny moments and precious memories.

Before the day itself there is all the planning.

I listened with interest to the reports of how Catherine had definite ideas about how she wanted the wedding to look, especially the trees that lined the nave of the church, the flowers used and their meaning.  It is a bride’s prerogative to have the day she desires.

For me I always knew I wanted a dress with “something blue” as part of the design.  I wanted to make it myself and I only ever tried on one other wedding dress and that was my mother’s, my standby dress if I irreversibly messed up my own. 

The blue in my dress took the form of silk flowers around the scooped, ruched neckline and the tiny fabric covered buttons that ran down my back.  I also made bow ties for my two page boys with the same material and the shade of blue perfectly matched my Ceylon sapphire engagement ring.

I had a bouquet of silk flowers so I could continue the hint of blue theme, there aren’t many naturally occurring blue flowers to choose from.   The bouquet still sits on a shelf in my bedroom today.

Other details I remember from the day are making sure I got to the church on time.  Andrew declared if I wasn’t there on time he wouldn’t wait! 

 

My dad and I walked to the church from my mother-in-laws house as it was only yards away and just across the road.  We had no official wedding video but there is an amateur recording of me and my dad arriving on foot and having to back track quickly as Andrew and his brothers were still outside the church being photographed and I didn’t want to be seen by them before my grand entrance!

The service was reasonably informal and I will always treasure the sight of my two small nephews, my page boys, sitting on the floor in front of us drawing while we listened to the reading and sermon.

Then there was a time after the meal when Andrew and I looked across into an adjoining room and spotted his brother having what we later referred to as a “Bailey’s moment”.   He’d found somewhere to sit away from the hustle and bustle and have a private celebratory drink.

We didn’t have our evening reception until the following Saturday.  The wedding took place in Andrew’s home town, where we had met and the evening “do” where I had grown up.  It was a chance to wear my dress for a second time and invite even more family and friends to celebrate with us.

So on our actual wedding day Andrew and I managed to slip away fairly early in the evening and head off home together.  Not many people know that I made him carry me over the threshold in the traditional style when we arrived!

We shared another secret as we then headed off to another hotel for our wedding night.  I always had a dream of going back and celebrating an anniversary in the future, maybe a special one, just the two of us.

Our wedding was nearly 17 years ago but now I’ll never be married for more than sixteen years, seven months and six days.  That thought hit me pretty early on.  We will never celebrate twenty years of marriage or reach our silver wedding anniversary.  I felt cheated by that thought and still do.  To reach these milestones is an achievement.

Our anniversary is just over a week away on the 7th May, and it’s my next big hurdle to overcome.   We never made much fuss in the past but part of me is already dreading how I’m going to be on that day.

As it happens the boys and I have been invited to a friend’s fortieth birthday party that day and it is being held in the church we got married in.  I think it’s quite fitting to celebrate a happy occasion along with some of the friends who shared our own special day all those years ago.

But the trouble with grief is you never quite know what is going to trip you up.  You can be fine one minute and the smallest thing can knock you off your feet.  Sometimes you can’t even put your finger on what set you off again.  Somehow all the tiny details align and you realise the enormity of the whole picture.  It’s overwhelming.

 

Last week I found Easter particularly difficult.  Death and resurrection.  I cried at every service but fortunately I was surrounded by friends and felt comfortable to let my true feelings show.

As I’ve been writing this William and Kate have become man and wife.   The world has seen the dress and watched them publically affirm their vows.  They are now continuing their festivities with family and friends. 

I wish them well and pray they have a long and happy life together.   Today has been such a grand occasion but I hope they remember the tiniest of details, treasuring their own special moments from this day. 

Problem Solving - Past and Present

One of the real joys of home ownership is all the maintainance and problem solving to be done when things go wrong - OK so maybe it isn't a joy.

This year's obstacle to be overcome is the broken bolier but last year it was a water leak.

My garden once looked like this...

...but now looks like this!

The situation caused a lot of trauma and heartache at the time but hopefully I learnt a few lessons along the way and have at least been a bit calmer this year with the bolier.

I may not have felt calm and responsible, or even acted it, but on reflection I have felt just a bit more capable of sorting it out on my own. Even if I haven't followed all the advice given.  

Good decision? Bad decision? Always MY decision! That's something I am learning daily and probably something I started to get to grips with last year with the water leaking incident.

Anyway here's what I wrote then about the man who fixed the leak when just about eveyone else had failed...



A Man with a Van and a Spade
(posted 14th April 2011)

I have been having a long running saga with a cracked/broken/leaking water pipe.  

Several people have been involved in searching for the offending pipe.

A bit of digging, a fence pulled down.  A wall removed stone by stone.  More digging.

The location of the pipe was a complete mystery.  Somewhere under some tree roots perhaps?  Twisted, tangled and damaged!

The man from the water company came and traced the pipes with a fancy gadget like a metal detector.  So now we knew where to dig…

But then there was the problem of the tree it already grew at an angle leaning towards the house and garage and the roots were being severely undermined.

We called the tree man who said “STOP!  No more digging until the tree comes down.”

The tree came down and the digging resumed.

My dad dug deeper and deeper with no success.

Everything STOPPED for a second time as I called the insurance company to see if we were covered and they could send out some professionals.

“They’ll send a team of men with a digger and all the right equipment.” said my dad knowingly relieved he could at last go and dig another part of the garden and terrify the weeds!

We waited.

On Tuesday a man in a van with a spade turned up!

He had to ring me from just around the corner to find out where my house was.  I was full of doubt, fearing my on-going saga would never end.

The man muttered to himself, leant on his spade and pondered.  He seemed to be digging in a different direction.  Certainly not the way the man from the water company had led us to believe in.

But this man had his own detector gadget and that was obviously telling him something different and who was I to interfere?

After a few hours of digging, muttering, detecting he found the pipe and fixed it – all quite simple really.  There was no stress and no drama.  It was my dad who had been digging in the wrong direction all along due to a false reading!

In the end it took just one man in a van with a spade to do what six men between them couldn’t achieve!

His big advantage was that he had everything he needed to hand.  A spade to dig, the technical gadgetry to trace the pipes and the knowledge how to fix them.  Everything came together perfectly.

Oh if only everything in life was so simple. 

 

I wrote the other day about feeling like a child.  What I really want right now is someone to tell me all the answers.  I’m worried I might be digging in a misguided direction and things will go terribly wrong.

My only task is to make the good choices for me and the boys.  Ultimately there are no rights and wrongs in the decisions I make just other people’s opinions.  Life is full of twists and turns and like everyone else I just have to do the best I can with the resources and information I have to hand.

I’ve made some decisions already, some hastily out of necessity and others I’ve pondered long and hard, still not knowing the answers.

I know already that some decisions I've already taken may have been made differently in hindsight.

But I have reached the stage where I am trying to take some control and I need to rely on this strength I supposedly have.  It’s hard work and the scariest thing I’ve ever had to do. 

If it just affected me it might be easier but truthfully without the boys to keep me going I may not have got this far!

I need to give myself permission to fail.  It is OK if I don’t get it all right.  I can dig holes all over the garden looking for answers if I want to!

However just now I need to STOP a while and take stock.  The boys are off school on their Easter holiday so I need to take a break too.  Let things settle in much the same way I did over the Christmas holiday. 

 

Maybe some answers will come in the quiet stillness of resting and if not when the boys go back to school I will once more pick up my spade and start digging!

So what's changed in a year?

I wrote this almost a year ago and still it almost all holds true. This is how I felt then and I don't feel like I've moved much further now. I'm stuck in a loop, in a game where I keep landing on the "go back three spaces" square.

So much is still the same and I can't see anything changing in the immediate future.

Guess I just have to learn to live with the here and now. Just wish I knew how to...

Caught between the past and future tense (written 21st April 2011)

I haven’t written anything for about a week and I’m struggling to think of what to write.  I seem to have used up all my ideas and already written all the thoughts that run round my head…

Last week I wrote about finding some peace and quiet.  About downing tools and having a rest.

Why is that so hard?  Admittedly we’ve been busy because the boys are off school and there have been different but extra things to do.

What I find hardest is my brain doesn’t stop, doesn’t rest or switch off.  All the jobs I have to do, all the options I’m considering are always there bubbling away. 

I’m very good at writing platitudes about resting and stopping but not so good at living them.

As I said at the start I feel like I’ve used up all my creative ideas.

I’m still trying NOT to measure my days by achievements, attempting to get some peace.  How many times have I written this stuff?

I feel disjointed.  Some parts of me have moved on.  There are some things I’m doing differently because I can.

It's a small example but I’m wearing make-up and perfume more and more.  Andrew hated it but these days’ new eye shadows and mascaras are finding their way into the weekly shopping trolley.  He said I looked fine without it, wouldn’t even kiss me with lipstick on, but there are times when I look in the mirror and know I need an extra bit of “sparkle”.  Who is that old woman?

However sometimes I feel like I’m all talk and no action.  I have fanciful plans and dreams but I have lost “the wind beneath my wings”, as Bette Midler sang about in Beaches.

My confidence is slipping.  I can recognise the beginning of the downward spiral where everyone else does things so much better than me.  There must be a more interesting blog to be reading than this one?

I’m caught between the old life I can’t have and a new one I have to rebuild.  It won’t necessarily be better but different.

I'd trade this new one for the old one in a heartbeat!

I wrote a poem a while ago called “Caught between the past and future tense”.  I never posted it because it wasn’t finished.  I’m still not sure I’m 100% happy with it but it talks so much of what I’ve written today…

Caught between the past and future tense

Sometimes… I catch myself

Falling in between

What was and is

I say “we do that”

Instead of shifting

The word “do” to “did”

Shifting my world

From “us” to “I”

I get stuck somewhere in the middle

Of what is and is no more

And can never be

Sometimes I hear myself

Laugh and dream

Of what will be

I say “next time I…”

And move my world on

Like winding round the hands of a clock

Embracing the future

I get wound up in a wish

Of what can be

New hope to enfold me

Sometimes I am all too aware

Of where I am

What is.  The Here.  The Now.

I say “this is too hard without you!”

The day-to-day-one-foot-in-front-of-the-other routine

I get lost in the myriad of conflicting voices

I just want to hide and cover my ears

Curl up in a ball and disappear.

There’s a cliché that the present is so called because it is a gift.  At the moment it is a cruel one.  

I’ve called this blog unravelling edges and I feel I am still coming undone.

Imagine accidently catching your favourite cardigan on an unseen nail and it pulls.  You immediately want to be able to step back in time, spot the offending barb and sidestep it altogether.   

There are alway sharp points that catch you unawares, a song, a comment, an item you uncover and you crumple.  Sometimes just a few tears and other times a torrent of “why?” and “how?” and “what do I do now?”

My post seems pretty depressing today.  I am mostly optimistic for the future but in the present I have reached the point where I know Andrew isn’t coming back.  I’m still adjusting and fine tuning but I finally accept he’s gone – for good. 

 

I wish I could end on a more positive note, I really am trying to find one.

  

I just received an email from a friend of my mum’s asking for the link to this blog, if it wasn’t private.

Should I keep my thoughts to myself?  Should I just stop “curl up in a ball and disappear” like the end of my poem?

 

But if you have read this far don’t you want to know how this turns out?  I can’t promise a happy ending but I love the fairytales where everyone does get to live happily ever after.

Somewhere between the past and the future tense is NOW and that’s where I am living at present. 

 

It’s the bit where Cinderella is clearing up after her ugly sisters when they have been invited to the ball. 

It’s where Frodo and Sam are struggling towards Mount Doom through the wastelands of Mordor.

Being topical it’s the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. 

 

Somewhere between the worst thing that’s ever happened and the resurrection.

unravelling edges revisited - an Easter Blessing

Time goes by and once more we are approaching Easter. A time of sorrow on Good Friday, yet a time of great rejoicing at the resurrection.

Last year I had the priviledge of writing something for the church notice sheet as we were still between vicars, what I wrote was a resurrection story with a twist.

It was a big step for me at the time to complete a piece of writing that was not about losing a husband and being a widow. 

It's worth re-posting as an example of how God can make something new from something discarded if we let him...

An Unusual Easter Blessing

It was an unassuming, very ordinary mobile phone with no fancy features.  Left on the shelf for months, discarded twice in its life for a newer model.

Originally it was my phone, an upgrade from the “brick” that wouldn’t fit in my pocket.

Eventually the lack of a colour screen or ability to take photos made it less desirable.  However with a new cover it made a perfect first phone for our oldest son.

Inevitably he soon also wanted something more sophisticated and cool.

But our old phone has found new life in a most unexpected way.

A young man, I once had the privilege of teaching in Sunday School, put out a plea on Facebook for an old mobile phone he could use for work.  His job is as a youth leader.  

I caught up with him the other day and he explained my old phone’s new purpose.

It has become a phone for his youth group to text their prayer requests to.

My old phone number has been resurrected as a PRAYER HOTLINE!

This Easter praise God that he can make everything new and take all that we give him to use for his glory.

And remember when Jesus died on the cross and rose again he gave us all a direct prayer hotline to our Father in Heaven.

Hallelujah and Happy Easter!